[asterisk-users] What are the various models of DID providers

[Alex Balashov]

SIP wrote:

>> I don't know that the price of UNE DS1s and DS3s is really all that 
>> exceptional.  Sure, it seems impressive that you can get a T1 in LATA 
>> 438 for some odd $44, but once you factor in the costs of 
>> interconnection, CO colocation, EELs and interoffice mileage if not 
>> colocated in the CO to which the circuit is being generated, private 
>> SONET for backhaul, etc.
 >
> The interconnection, CO colocation, private SONET, etc, are already in
> place in something like 60 municipalities and 4 Atlanta metro areas.
> They're using the UNEs to cut costs. Honestly, you could ask me some
> complex questions about their network, but I don't know it all that well...

I understand.

All I was trying to say is that the amortised cost of providing UNEs can 
be substantial, and that raw UNE prices on a per-circuit don't reveal 
that picture.

That doesn't mean it's not ultimately cheaper than going the 
wholesale/special access tariff route as a non-CLEC ISP would do.

>> I'm not sure I follow.  Voice trunks need routing to E911 tandems, but 
>> what do data circuits have to do with this?   
> 
> Nothing. This is part of a law governing who can get UNEs. I don't have
> it handy, but I'll look it up on Thursday (when I get back to the
> office... have it in email there but not here for some reason).

I'm not questioning your impression, but that doesn't make any sense, 
and I haven't heard that before.

What if you operate the kind of CLEC that just DACSs their CO CFA off 
their interconnect or private fiber into a data network full of circuit 
aggregation routers?

In other words, what if you don't even run a switch or provide voice of 
any kind?  What are you supposed to do then?  What if you're a "DLEC" 
like Covad?

>>   
>>> This is where we came in, and where the middle-man model still works to
>>> some degree. They could simply buy great swaths of DIDs for themselves
>>> at ridiculously low rates (being a LEC), but the caveat there is that
>>> the DIDs have to be USED, or they're reassigned. 
>>>     
>> Depends on the area;  NANPA and pooling blocks aren't necessarily cheap.
>>   
> 
> The numbers they quoted us were reasonable. Something like $500 for 2000
> DIDs. Or possibly $200. Again... fuzzy on the exact numbers there, but I
> remember it was quite good.

It really depends on the area.  But number resources are scarce;  to a 
large extent there is a similar problem there as with IPv4 address space 
in urban areas like Atlanta.

Pooling has helped a lot with that, though.  Now folks that can't 
justify a 10,000 block can still get numbers.

> It has to do with a recent modification of the telecom laws concerning
> who's allowed to have access to the UNEs and who isn't, and it
> stipulates that, in order to have access to them, you're now required to
> be able to provide E911 service over them (as the law seems to just
> outright assume that you'll be using them for voice). The law itself
> doesn't seem to take into account that there's even a possibility that
> someone might use a UNE for ONLY data (like many of the more recent
> modifications to the telecom act, it appears to have been hastily and
> vaguely written).

Which modifications?  (Yes, I know, you'll have the info when you're 
back at the office.  :-)

Are you sure this applies to T1s and such, rather than POTS / analog 
circuits that fall into the UNE spectrum?

I just went and looked at some ICAs of CLECs I've worked with and don't 
see anything about that for UNE circuits as such.  But, of course, these 
documents are incredibly recondite and hundreds of pages long.

-- Alex

-- 
Alex Balashov
Evariste Systems
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